1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an automatic hole punching machine for creating holes in a sheave of papers or other sheet materials.
2. Description of the Related Art
It is typical in an office environment to store collected papers by punching holes through the sheave and inserting appropriate rings or posts through the holes to maintain the collection for storage and subsequent leafing through while maintaining the papers in an orderly stack.
There are various ways and methods in which a sheave of papers may have holes created therethrough. The most common way is through the use of a hole punch, which exerts shear forces on the paper sufficient to punch a hole through one or more sheets. A plurality of holes are typically used to maintain a collection of papers, and thus, the spacing of the holes is an important consideration in light of the storage device, which usually requires a predetermined spacing between the holes.
Most commonly, papers are punched with 2 holes or 3 holes or 4 holes at predetermined spacing along one edge of the paper to correspond with standard binders, folders, or other storage devices. Typically, three holes or four holes are punched down the left side of the pages for storage in what is generally known as a 3-ringed or 4-ringed binder. Also common, two holes are punched along the top edge of the pages for storage in a folder having a pair of rigid or bendable posts.
Many hole-punching devices are manually driven. That is, a user must exert a force on a lever to drive a punch through a sheave of papers. Some devices have been designed to incorporate an electric motor configured to drive one or more punches through the papers, thus alleviating the necessity of the user exerting a manual force to effectuate the punching process.
However, because of the differences in spacing required by commercially available two-ringed, three-ringed, and four-ringed paper storage devices, hole punches must typically be manually reconfigured to appropriately create 2, 3, or 4 holes at the appropriate locations. The reconfiguration required must not only realign the distance between the punches used to create the holes, but must also change the location of the holes relative to an adjacent edge. For example, in one type of three-hole punch, the first hole is spaced approximately 31.7 mm (1¼ inches) from the top edge of the paper, while in a typical two-hole punch, the first hole is spaced about 72.95 mm (2⅞ inches) from the left edge of the paper. Moreover, one type of three-ringed storage device typically spaces the storage rings about 108 mm (4¼ inches) apart, while a two-ringed storage device typically separates the storage rings by about 70 mm (2¾ inches).
Accordingly, in order for a device to punch in two-hole, three-hole, and four-hole configurations, it must not only be able to vary the distance between the holes, but also realign the paper to appropriately locate the holes to coincide with industry standard spacing.
As is most often the case, separate hole punch devices are required for two-hole, three-hole, and four-hole operation. Alternatively, a single device may be manually reconfigured to provide multiple punching modes. However, such reconfiguration is often complex and requires manually adjusting the position of one or more of the punches and may also require manually adjusting the paper location to arrive at a hole pattern that is the correct distance between holes and the proper distance from the edge of the material.
There is thus a need for an automatic hole punch device that provides simple and efficient operation and adjustment between punching modes.